Yesterday, I was a little shocked and surprised to find that I’m ranked #12 in the list of most prolific Tweeters among StatSocial’s Top 100 Social Media Influencers … this is according to DidIt.com in their post “Social Media Power Influencers: Who Tweets Fastest?” In their post they clearly explain that there was no attempt to evaluate the quality of the tweets in the study:
No effort was made to parse, decode, or subjectively evaluate the content of any given Tweet or Retweet or evaluate its merit or audience relevancy.
This got me to thinking. Objectively measuring tweet speed/volume is interesting (hence the post) but HOW do those top influencers tweet – THAT would be some great information! It’d be practical for the average Twitter user to see what tools the pros are using.
Sooooo, after scouring through the DidIt post to devour all of their yummy data-liciousness, I powered up a spreadsheet of my own and fired up a couple browser plugins.
Here Was My Process
- I created a new spreadsheet with all of the Top 100 2015 Social Media Influencers
- I then opened up their twitter profiles
- Using the “Klout” plugin for Chrome, I grabbed their Klout score – to be a rough measure of social media influence
- Using the “Riffle” plugin for Chrome, I made note of the top three Twitter clients (twitter applications or tools) they’re using.
THE TOP TWITTER TOOLS
Here’s the list of the top Twitter tools
Click the links to check out the tools. They’re all free or have free demos!
The number refers to the number of Top 100 Social Media Influencers who use that particular tool;
56 – Twitter Web Client
50 – Mobile Twitter Client
27 – Hootsuite
21 – Tweetdeck
21 – Buffer
12 – Instagram
9 – Triberr
8 – Twitterfeed
8 – SproutSocial
7 – Paper.li
6 – Tweetbot
5 – Social Oomph
4 – Commun.it
3 – Facebook
3 – Blog/Blog Plugin
3 – IFTTT
2 – Tchat.io
2 – GaggleAMP
2 – Linkis
2 – Tweetchat
2 – Meet Edgar
2 – LinkedIn
2 – Foursquare
1 – Alltop
1 – Socialflow
1 – TwitterAds
1 – Carbon for Android
1 – Twitterific
1 – Tumblr
1 – Influitive
1 – Echofon
1 – TweetAdder
1 – Klout
1 – Sendible
1 – Dlvr.it
1 – SocialBuzzClub
1 – Shareist
1 – JustCoz
1 – TwentyFeet
1 – Lose It
1 – Janetter
1 – Unfollowers
HOLY COW, that’s 42 different tools! Some are account management tools, some are platforms, some are social media monitoring tools, some are social networks/platforms, some are content aggregators, etc., etc. As I was compiling the list, the number and variety of tools was my first surprise. But there’s more…
Some Comments
- Riffle only shows the top three clients for any given person but, with only a couple of cases, this accounted for 95%+ of the tweets generated by that person.
- I didn’t make note of which tool was used most often by that person
- Six (6) of the top influencers don’t have Klout accounts (noted in the spreadsheet as “no acct”), so I wasn’t able to include them in the top-25 … even though I suspect that at least a couple of them belong there. Sorry!
- In the spreadsheet, a “1” indicates the influencer uses the tool. Blank, they don’t use the tool.
- I didn’t differentiate between iOS, Android, smart phones or tablets using a Twitter client. They all fell into the bucket of “Twitter Mobile.” I thought it was more relevant to note the choice of tweeting with a mobile device AND sending directly from Twitter, rather than which mobile device or which OS. Some of the other tools noted above (e.g. Carbon) are also mobile twitter clients … but, they’re not THE Twitter client.
- The Riffle plugin by CrowdRiff gathers some other pretty amazing data directly related to this type of analysis. Such as:
- Tweet to Retweet ratio
- Favorites to Tweet ratio
- Their top hashtags
- Who mentions them most often
- What URL they refer to most often
- …. and more. Be sure to check it out.
Observations and Insights
To see all the data, download the entire spreadsheet here.
The “Best Tool”
In the top 100, you can see above that Hootsuite edged out Tweet by a slim margin: 27 to 21. HOWEVER, if you look at just the top 25 influencers, sorted by their Klout score, the numbers flip … with Tweetdeck eeking out a slim win over Hootsuite: 8 to 7.
How Many Tools?
Only ten (10) of the top 100 influencers opt out of using any type of Twitter management tool. Instead, they choose to use only (one or both) the Twitter desktop application and/or the Twitter Mobile app. The other 90 use one or more non-Twitter-owned tools to manage their tweet process. (shown as yellow in the left column of the spreadsheet)
Twenty six (26) of the top 100 influencers use third party tools almost exclusively…. having 99% of their tweets being sent by the tool, not Twitter desktop or Twitter mobile. (shown as green in the left column of the spreadsheet)
What Does This All Mean?
Here are my takeaways from this dive into twitter tool data:
- The big winners (not surprisingly) are Hootsuite and Tweetdeck
- The next round of serious contenders includes: Buffer, Instagram, Triberr, Twitterfeed, Sprout Social, Paper.li, Tweetbot and Social Oomph.
- Outside of these frequently used tools, there doesn’t seem to be any other correlation. There are a surprising number of tools in use … not just a handful like I was expecting to see.
- Although quality is most important, volume does indeed matter! I’d love to see the data collected by DidIt to include a 5-6 month range. That should be enough to tell of there’s a correlation between volume and influence. I suspect that it does.
- The most influential people in this space use tools to make their process more efficient! Most use more than one.
Wrapping Up
So, What tools are you using?
Are you using something that’s not on the list above?
If so, let me know, I’d like to keep this tally going.
Here’s an info-graphic to pin or tweet or post or print out to mail to your granny.
